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Android far too fragmented for Football Manager, claims Sports Interactive studio manager Jacobson

Studio unwilling to push out shoddy product

Android far too fragmented for Football Manager, claims Sports Interactive studio manager Jacobson
It's an issue Google no doubt hoped Android had put behind it, but the question of fragmentation on the platform has once again reared its splintered head.

Sports Interactive is the latest developer to claim Android's fragmented state makes supporting the platform too difficult a task.

 

As such, studio manager Miles Jacobson has claimed the disjointed nature of the platform has ruled out any appearance of the firm's Football Manager franchise any time soon.

No plan B

"We hope at some point there is less fragmentation in the Android market, but that is why we haven't gone onto Android already," said Jacobson in an interview with Pocket-lint, with Football Manager 2012 currently preparing to launch on iOS.

"Basically, with everyone making their own version of Android it makes it really really hard [to guarantee that it works universally].”

In short, Jacobson said managing the multifaceted nature of Android is simply too much for a studio like Sports Interactive to bear.

Repeat play

Indeed, it's a problem the developer has encountered before - on PC.

"Open source software is fantastic, but that's also where Linux has gone wrong for us," he added.

"If there was one flavour of Linux, we'd have a Linux version out there. But with six or seven different versions of Linux, that's six or seven different amounts of testing we'd have to do. It's not the actual development, it's testing a game that's as massive as Football Manager.

"And that's the same with Android. We want to do it as a studio. We have a bunch of guys at the studio who have Android phones. We'd love to do it. But, at the moment, we're not there. So, we're sticking to iOS for now."

[source: Pocket Lint]

When Matt was 7 years old he didn't write to Santa like the other little boys and girls. He wrote to Mario. When the rotund plumber replied, Matt's dedication to a life of gaming was established. Like an otaku David Carradine, he wandered the planet until becoming a writer at Pocket Gamer.